Jon Moxley, formerly known as Dean Ambrose from his time in WWE, went viral back in late May when he gave an interview with Chris Jericho on the Talk is Jericho podcast and discussed his frustrations with WWE’s creative process during his time with the company.
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Seth Rollins, Moxley’s former tag partner in The Shield, made waves over the weekend when he boldly defended WWE as the “best pro wrestling on the planet. Period.” He appeared on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast this week and finally addressed all of Moxley’s comments.
“Ambrose can do what he wants,” Rollins said. “He’s a big boy, he’s got his big boy pants on. He can go out there and say whatever he wants, but the bottom line is not everybody’s equipped to handle the rigors of WWE and the schedule and how it affects you mentally and emotionally.
“And Ambrose gave everything he had to the company for the entire time he was here,” he added. “He put his heart and soul into the travel, into the schedule, into the injuries, into the work in the ring and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, he took his ball and he went home, or he went elsewhere at least. And I think it’s a little presumptuous of him to get on a podcast and talk down about the company that gave him such an opportunity. And he referenced some of those. He talked about how he’s thankful for the time he spent here and that that he learned, he met his wife and all that good stuff. Like I said, I love the guy, I’ll always love him. But at the end of the day we just share differing perspectives about what we want out of life and where we’re at in our own lives.
Rollins continued. “And so I hope that he does well, I’ve kept enough tabs on him to know that he’s doing super well for himself right now and I’m happy for that. But I just don’t think there’s any reason to, again, hop on a soap box and complain after the fact. You need to take the first step and look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Did you do every single you possibly could to make yourself and your situation what you want it to be?’ And if the answer is ‘Yes you did,’ then you can go elsewhere and complain. If that’s where he’s at mentally then go right ahead, but if he hasn’t done that, he hasn’t looked in the mirror and made that decision, then maybe he should think about that. That goes for any other disgruntled talent past or present.”
Rollins stated he and Moxley haven’t discussed Moxley’s comments, adding that he still loves and respects him.
Moxley’s biggest talking point during his interview was his frustration with how WWE handles the wrestlers’ characters and forces them to stick to scripted promos.
“It [the creative process] does not work, it’s absolutely terrible,” Moxley said. “I’ve said that to Vince [McMahon], I’ve said that to Hunter [Triple H], I’ve said that Michael Hayes. I can’t even tell you how their system works, it’s some kind of system of meetings that take place in Stamford, then there’s a home team. There’s writers and producers and production meetings and nobody knows what’s approved and what’s not.
“The bureaucratic red tape that you have to go through to get anything approved is crazy! It doesn’t work! It’s killing the company and I think Vince is the problem,” he added. “And not so much Vince, but whatever the structure that he built around himself probably starting around 2002 after the sale of WCW and this infrastructure of writers, producers and this is what the WWE is and what the product is, and the product sucks. [They have] great talent, amazing talent. None of this is their fault.”